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Joe Palmer

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Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth: Eva and other stories

by Mandy Haynes (Goodreads Author)

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Joe Palmer said: " Fernandina Beach Author Mandy Haynes Hits Another One Over The Fence!

Barely a year after her smash hit of short story collections, WALKING THE WRONG WAY HOME, which landed her in the sweet spot with an official selection a a Bonus Pick in the vaunted Fernandina Beach Author Mandy Haynes Hits Another One Over The Fence!

Barely a year after her smash hit of short story collections, WALKING THE WRONG WAY HOME, which landed her in the sweet spot with an official selection a a Bonus Pick in the vaunted Pulpwood Queens Book Club, in addition to garnering praise from best selling authors, Mandy has come roaring back with another collection of short stories. This one, SHARP AS A SERPENT'S TOOTH - EVA AND OTHER STORIES, goes once again into Mandy's native middle Tennessee. Not content to rest on her laurels and let the kudzu grown around her ankles, she delves, with laser focus, in acute detail once again into the lives of the put down and disaffected from "the wrong side of the railroad tracks," as those of us who lived on that side of the tracks know from firsthand experience.

I just blogged on my own author website, joepalmerauthor.com about this powerful collection of stories that includes everything from snake handling holiness preachers to an enigmatic young girl who rids herself of her abusive parents in a way that'll make your skin crawl, to a young, dashing preacher with a taste for jailbait who gets caught with his pants down, to a rock throwing girl with a deadly aim, to a flaming moonshiner and a witchy Auntie who shows up in her newly orphaned young niece's life and proceeds to set the small town on its heels while dispossessing the child of some nasty rumors about her.

If you took Harry Crews, Flannery O'Connor, James Lee Burke and Carl Hiaasen, put them together of a bottle of RC Cola, tossed in a few salted peanuts for good measure and gave it a good shake, what would come exploding out of the bottle would be Mandy Haynes. Follow her into her world and you'll be on your knees with her in a creek hunting crawdads under rocks, catching salamanders and snakes, giving catty, teenage high school girls their comeuppance when they hiss at you because you don't have a fancy gown to wear to the ball, throwing rocks, making biscuits in an old cast iron skillet, , taming a wayward boyfriend and all manner of country-fried shenanigans. You'll get your clothes dirty and your dander up, bust a gut laughing, get so pissed off that you want to slap the taste out of someone's mouth and, most of all, enjoy a foot-stomping good read. Although Mandy's characters are Southerners who live in a part of the world where "polite company" averts its gaze while passing through, there are deeper and universal themes painted in bright colors on her canvas. Most of us have felt pain, despair, hopelessness and marginalization at one moment or another in our lives. Mandy imbues her off-kilter and disconsolate characters with these things and presents them in a way anyone can comprehend and say to themselves, if they're honest - Oh, hell, yes, girl. I sure do know!

This newly published collection is already getting noticed by some writers that puts Mandy in some high cotton. And she dang sure deserves to be there. All this author can add to that praise is, "Day-ummm, girl! When are you gonna put all these characters in a novel?" I have a feeling we won't have to wait long. ...more "

Oct 29, 2020 11:43AM · see review